“Stop making little noises of wonder, can you?” Schwarz muttered, using the side of his lips. “You’re making me look like an idiot.”

“Who?” Claud and Lily asked. “Me?”

“Both of you!”

Count Nightfall chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, sir Schwarz. I’m happy that the interior of my palace interests the two of you. If you want to, we can have a small tour around my palace after official business is conducted?”

“Really?” Lily asked.

Claud pricked his ears up at that response. “I’ll take you up on that offer then.”

“Me too, me too!”

Claud had a feeling that her motive in asking was quite similar to his own, though. It wouldn’t hurt to know what the layout of Nightfall Palace was like, just in case he actually needed to…borrow some items from it. For Lily, she probably wanted to look for places where she could conduct an efficient demolition job. In a sense, both objectives overlapped with each other.

Whether the two of them would do anything like theft or blowing up the palace was really context-dependent, though.

“I apologise for the unruly members of my delegation,” Schwarz replied, his words neither subservient nor overbearing. “These two kids love great art and interesting places; they will stop at nothing to see what they want.”

“That’s natural,” Count Nightfall replied, his simple black shirt rippling as he spoke. “Ah. We’ve arrived. I’ll share with you the results of our investigation first, and then we can follow up with the tour and a small banquet.”

“Very well,” Schwarz replied. “We’ll abide by your arrangements. Once again, thank you for accommodating this unruly pair.”

The count chuckled, before gesturing at the door they had stopped at. It was a simple black door, one that looked like every other door they had passed so far, and as they stepped it, Claud couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

The interior was minimalistic to a point. There was one bookshelf full of books, as well as a table and chair. Claud couldn’t even bring himself to describe how the sparse furniture even looked like; it was as if his childhood idea of a brown table and chair had appeared. It would be far easier to describe the neat mountains of documents sitting on the table, as well as the black pen, inlaid with gold engravings, sitting in the very middle.

“It’s not much,” Count Nightfall said quietly, “but it gets the job done.”

He cleared his throat as the two attendants following behind them earlier left the room. “Now, findings. With such an unpleasant incident going on, we had to hold nothing back in interrogating Rodrio…or rather, the person who once used to be Rodrio.”

“What do you mean by that, count?” Schwarz asked, his voice a calm sea.

“The being you once knew as Rodrio has died,” Nightfall replied. “His mind has been shattered.”

“What?”

“This one supposes it would be easier if I were to show you.” The count retrieved a document from the huge piles on his table with absurd ease, before passing it over to Schwarz. “This is his status. While he is still alive, in the physical sense of the word, he no longer has control over his body and mind.”

The bartender looked through the document, before narrowing his eyes. Without a word, he passed it over to Claud and Lily, who looked at it together. It was a normal status, with skills that a guard should have, but a particular phrase had been highlighted.

Claud’s heart skipped a beat as he looked at it.

The words ‘Thrall of ThBoD:A???’ were written there and underlined in bold. The first two words were nothing of interest to Claud; his eyes had been drawn over to the last one the moment he saw the Passive Skills section. He didn’t dare to think too much, though. A single mistake, and the others would notice. Now was not the time.

“Count,” Schwarz began slowly, “the passive skill is…”

“Errors, apparently. I have no idea what that last word is. From our records…or really historical ones, anyway, the three question marks represent error points. Or an overflow, but I don’t know what ‘overflow’ refers to.” The count tapped the wooden table lightly. “There have been multiple occurrences when question marks appear in one’s status, but all of them are very…problematic.”

“Problematic?” Schwarz asked.

“Yes,” Nightfall replied. “They are…almost always linked to godhood. An odd choice of word, yes. But that’s the closest approximation the historical records give.”

“Can we look at these records you speak of?” Schwarz asked. “I think a different perspective could be useful.”

“I agree, but regretfully, it’s…not accessible to anyone but me,” Count Nightfall replied. “Emperor Grandis has many wonders at his disposal. One of them includes a…shared world of…information that all nobles of a certain rank can access. My access to information there, however, remains limited.”

His words came out stilted, but no one was going to comment on that. Claud was more interested in what the count meant when he said ‘a shared world’, but the chances of finding out were just slightly higher than him being the bastard daughter of Emperor Grandis.

“We’ll have to accept that information as true, then,” Schwarz noted. “So, back to the main point. This passive skill is what’s controlling Rodrio?”

“Yes. The control seems to be unbreakable…even absolute,” Count Nightfall replied. “It’s an incredible form of Mental Domination, capable of affecting multiple targets. It’s able to turn people into completely obedient slaves, slaves that will do anything in their power to execute their mission.”

“That’s horrible,” Lily murmured.

“Yes. Skills that nullify free will are banned in Grandis; any possessor of them, once caught, is subject to the death penalty,” Count Nightfall replied. “This skill, however, by virtue of being able to affect multiple people and command absolute loyalty of them—”

“Hold on,” said Schwarz. “Count, how do you know that it can command multiple people?”

“Because the murderer haunting Nachtville was one such thrall too,” Nightfall replied. “My compliments to the Moon Lords dispatched there: they made an immense contribution to the process of neutralising the culprit. Suitable rewards have already been prepared for them.”

“The murderer…”

Claud gulped. He had to make use of his mana and the dulled wits of Rodrio to overcome him earlier. The most important bit, however, was that Rodrio was a vanilla. Even as a normal person, Claud had been forced back over and over in that battle.

“An ambush,” Lily murmured. “The others must have been worried that they couldn’t defeat the murderer.”

“Yes. The spear-thrower at Nachtville was unbelievably skilled, according to the reports.” Count Nightfall crossed his arms. “It’s unfortunate that the person who immobilised Rodrio cannot be found in the city. I wanted to ask him about Rodrio’s skills and see if there was a connection or something.”

Rodrio’s skill with a sword was indeed incredible, though. However, it was not something he could reveal—

“Right, that person…Claud, didn’t you know that person? The person who overcame Rodrio,” said Schwarz. “I didn’t know you had such a personage as your acquaintance. Really impressive.”

“I’m more disturbed at the fact that a tetra-folder was in my city without my knowledge, though,” Count Nightfall muttered.

“A tetra-folder?” Claud asked. “Who are you talking about?”

“The one who you got to help apprehend Rodrio?” Schwarz replied, confused. “Oh. You didn’t know he was a tetra-folder?”

“Y-yeah. That about sums it up,” Claud replied, surprised. “I’m very surprised, really.”

Unlike the others, who were surprised at the fact he didn’t know about his “friend” being a tetra-folder, Claud was surprised at how Schwarz and the others had cooked up a story of their own imagination. It was impressive how they had created such an explanation without any input from him at all.

Was everyone in Licencia lacking in a stable outlet to release pent-up imaginations?

That explanation would at least account for why so many people liked writing short stories in the city, though. There was even a Manuscript Festival held every year, which—

Claud shook his head, flushing the superfluous thoughts out of his mind.

“No chance of confirming things, then,” Count Nightfall mused out loud. “Other than these two incidents, I’ve been conferring with the administrations of the fellow counts under Istrel — Countess Farah and Count Boreas — who are also reporting similar incidents with these thralls. A huge storm is brewing up here, and I don’t like it.”

“Especially with Duke Istrel’s inauguration barely a month away,” Claud found himself subconsciously adding. Nightfall’s mention of Farah had gotten him distracted enough to open his mouth.

“Yes. I am not sure what to think of this incident. Is it something the Duke did? Or are these incidents something by the other two Dukes? Maybe there’s someone else trying to screw the entire sovereignty over.” The count folded his arms. “Fortunately, there’s at least a countermeasure. Anyone with the ability to command mana apparently cannot be controlled by this skill.”

“Wait, really?” Schwarz asked. “Darn it. I need lifestones too, then.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve prepared enough to make you a sub-folder. That’s just our hypothesis, though. The thralls encountered so far show no trace of mana; there might be a pattern there.”

“A sub-folder?” Schwarz asked.

“Yes. One of my servants will brief you on what a sub-folder is later,” Nightfall replied. “Or you can ask the Lunar Ladies. They should also know too.”

The bartender turned to looked at Lily, his eyebrow raised.

“I’ll handle it,” Lily replied. “So please stop staring at me like that. it’s scary!”

“That’s about it, then.” Count Nightfall exhaled slowly. “For now, the murder cases have ended. A storm is brewing up, however. Moon Lords, let us continue to protect this city together.”

He smiled, before getting up. “Come. A banquet awaits.”